That line was stolen from olly, I could never make it myself.I understand some blackbird schwa though. One piercing stretched sound that means "bring food", one lower chockle sound that means "come on Damsel Amsel here is food, and one hell of a cacophony that means " hell!!!,cats! magpies! Flemish jays, crows! All hands aboard!"

Hmm, /ʔaɪsɔːɹəbɜːd/. I understand the intrusive-r pronunciation up to the final word. Is the r intrusive, as Sir Michael Redgrave used to admonish his moppets not to pronounce, or does it somehow represent the schwa of the usual pronunciation of today /tə'deɪ/. I understand the intrusive-r to occur at the end of syllables when the next syllable starts with a vowel. YMMV.

The only sense I could make out of the ur in turday was a non-rhotic representation of some vowel I couldn't even begin to think how to represent. The eh in behd was my attempt that I probably shouldn't have begun to think how to represent for some other non-rhotic vowel.

The only sense I could make out of the ur in turday was a non-rhotic representation of some vowel I couldn't even begin to think how to represent. The eh in behd was my attempt that I probably shouldn't have begun to think how to represent for some other non-rhotic vowel.

Yep, I am so totally convinced. Let's throw the IPA and those annoying linguists off the boards and perhaps off the planet. We can just use English spelling to represent all the sounds of all languages. Besides, in a few years everybody will be speaking English anyway. And that with a non-UK, non-US accent.

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